Colleen Easley

The Iditarod is really winding down now.  Only a few mushers remain on the trail which makes for very little work for the race stats room.  I had the chance to get out this afternoon for a sort walk around the south side of Lake Hood with my friend, Ann Dimond.  We stopped just outside the hotel to watch as more dropped dogs were being unloaded from the dog truck after being flown in from the trail and then we continued on up the lake.

We stopped to watch a couple hard at work trying to dig their ski plane out of the ice.  It seemed pretty obvious that they hadn’t used the plane very much recently and the skis were frozen solid into the ice.  I’m not sure if they were wanting to go somewhere or if they just wanted to get the plane freed so they could move it off the lake before the lake ice breaks up.

As we got to our turn-around point I noticed this great view of our hotel.  The Chugach Mountains are in the background and the foreground is the ice and snow covered Lake Hood.

Although it was a short walk, it was very invigorating.  It felt so good to be out in the sunshine with temperatures over freezing.  I think spring is definitely on the near horizon for Anchorage.

Nikon D90
with Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VR II Zoom Lens
at 135mm, 1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO 200

Millennium Hotel and Chugach Mountains

I went shopping today for a new computer for my son.  His old laptop PC has been in death throes for some time so I wanted to replace it while it was still possible to retrieve the data on it.  I was thrilled when he said he’d consider a Mac – it made my job easy.  I had him bring Savanah over after school and secretly she and I went out and bought him a 21 inch iMac with a wireless keyboard and the new Magic Mouse.  When he came to pick her up he was a bit surprised when I said I was going home with him, but even more so when I pulled a huge Apple box out of the trunk of my loaner car!

While driving around town Savanah and I were looking for something interesting to photograph.  She’s only 9, but she’s already getting interested in doing a 365 project so I told her about the site dailyshoot.com.  Today’s assignment on dailyshoot was “Find something that’s so old it’s almost timeless and make a photograph of it”.  She choose her dad’s pocket watch and I choose this Catholic church.  The church building isn’t really very old, but the Church itself is timeless.

I don’t know if I’ll continue using the DailyShoot for my daily photos or not, but for Savanah it will be a good starting point.  I helped Savanah set up her own account at 365project.org/savanah and she’s excited to keep taking photos.  I hope she continues after I return to Washington next week.  Oh, and she and her dad are both loving the new iMac.  We even held a Skype video conference already with the cousins in Washington.

Today is the last day I’ll have access to a car so I took advantage of the beautiful evening by driving in to town to get a photo of the sun setting from Resolution Park.  With daylight saving time in effect, the sun is now setting at about 8:00 p.m.  There is a statue of Captain James Cook here that looks out over the waters of Cook Inlet which was named for him by  another British explorer who came after him, George Vancouver.  Cook sailed into these waters in 1778 as part of his second voyage of exploration; looking for the illusive northwest passage.  It was shortly after leaving these waters that he met his death at the hands of natives in what is now Hawaii.

The mountain in this shot is Mt. Susitna, also known as the sleeping lady.  The legend is that long ago when giants inhabited the land a Indian maiden, whose lover was heading off into battle, vowed to sit and wait for his return.  When he didn’t return and she grew weary of waiting, she lay down and fell fast asleep, never to awaken again.  It is said that when there is finally peace throughout the world, she will awaken once more.  If you look closely, you’ll see that her head is on the left with her hair flowing further away to the left and her rather flat chested body is on the right.

Also in this photo you can see that Cook Inlet doesn’t ever completely freeze.  It does get ice forming on it, but the strong tidal action keeps the ice broken up into what we call ice floes.

Nikon D90
with Nikon 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G AF-S ED VR II Zoom Lens
at 112mm, 1/400s, f/5.3, ISO 200

Mt Susitna - The Sleeping Lady